Impact of rare earth Dy+3 cations on the various parameters of nanocrystalline nickel spinel ferrite

Abstract In this work, nanocrystalline NiDyxFe2-xO4 ferrites (0.0 ≤ x ≤ 0.1) were synthesized via co-precipitation route. The impact of Dy+3 substitution on the various properties has been investigated. Structural, electrical, spectral and magnetic parameters were measured by XRD (X-ray diffraction), I–V (current-voltage), FTIR (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) and VSM (vibrating sample magnetometer) respectively. Morphological analysis was done by FE-SEM (Field emission scanning electron microscope). The formation of a single-phase FCC cubic spinel structure was confirmed by XRD patterns. With the help of XRD data, bond lengths and ionic radii were also calculated. FTIR spectra showed the formation of two typical frequency bands (υ1 and υ2) which represent metal-oxygen (M–O) vibrations at octahedral (B) and tetrahedral (A) sites. EDX spectrographs confirmed elemental composition. The M H curves demonstrated a decrease in saturation magnetization (Ms) and Bohr magneton (nB). The coercivity (Hc) showed a non –linear behaviour while anisotropy constant first increased and then decreased with Dy-substitution. NiDy0.025Fe1.975O4 showed maximum coercivity (102.06 Oe).